Debussy: La Mer; Prélude à l'après-midi d'un Faune; Jeux; Nocturnes - Leonard Bernstein,New York Philharmonic | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic Debussy: La Mer; Prélude à l'après-midi d'un Faune; Jeux; Nocturnes AllMusic Rating google+ AllMusic Review by AllMusic People often think of impressionist music as being emotionless yet trance-like, with no regard to melodic line or rhythmic clarity. Nothing could be further than the truth. When Claude Debussy set out to write music in a bold new language, it is doubtful he was thinking along these lines. In fact, he was a man of great discipline, and he had high regard for his musical predecessors. His music is highly representational; it is not in-your-face, and it asks the listener to change gears (just a little) to get its full benefit. Performers of Debussy's music are equally challenged: How do you stay true to the impressionist style while not having the music fall apart?

Leonard Bernstein knew what it meant to accurately convey Debussy's music; in order to get the desired effect, he had to precisely stick to the score with an almost pedagogical approach. Of course Bernstein triumphed and found every nuance, every detail Debussy meant to disclose, from the undulating roll of the waves in 'La Mer,' to the exultation found in "Fêtes" from the 'Nocturnes.' This fine disc is one of the best compilations of Debussy's symphonic works available. Track Listing Debussy: La mer – LSO Live Jonathan Stokes and Neil Hutchinson for Classic Sound Ltd balance engineers Recorded September & December 2009 and May 2010, Barbican, London DSD (Direct Stream Digital) recording Notes in English / en français / auf Deutsch ***** Multichannel Disc of the Month ‘This one shows Gergiev to be a top-flight conductor in the French repertory … Gergiev’s version of La mer displays the carefully-controlled power and impact of his approach, which fits this wonderfully impressionistic score like a glove.

The dynamic range is wide and abetted by the top-rate LSO surround sonics … hearing this superb Gergiev performance in state of the art hi-res surround takes the La mer experience to an entirely new level.’ Audiophile Audition Performance **** Recording ***** ‘The brass entries in the climaxes to the first and last movements of La mer have rarely sounded so good on disc: superlative SACD recording.’ BBC Music Magazine **** 'When Gergiev conducted this performance of the Prélude 12 months ago at the Barbican, I described it as “a luscious mirage of pointilliste detail”. The recording captures its mesmerising force, its atmospheric languor and exceptional beauty. La mer and Jeux are scarcely less exalted, suggesting Gergiev’s partnership with the London Symphony Orchestra still has honeymoon qualities.' Financial Times **** ‘If someone asked me to recommend a recording of Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, I would point them to this. Gergiev plays on colour and atmosphere to achieve a calm tension, a rare degree of sensuality.

What a beautiful picture!’ Pizzicato ‘Debussy’s three most celebrated orchestral works sit well together especially in the hands of a great orchestra in great form. And the disc proves Gergiev to be a fine Debussy conductor ... there is a certitude as well as subtlety even in the subtle textures of the Prélude, while in La Mer, one can almost taste the salt spray.’ Sunday Times ‘Phenomenal playing throughout and it’s so well recorded.’ BBC Radio 3 CD Review ‘From the shimmering picture of sea rippling over pebbles to the cataclysmic force of crashing waves, this has to be the most graphic picture of La Mer placed on disc. For conductor, Valery Gergiev, the LSO a display of detailed virtuosity, before moving to a whole spectrum of subtle sounds in the playful Jeux ... A demonstration in the art of orchestral recording.’ Yorkshire Post ‘Delicate, crystalline Debussy performances by the LSO … The combination of the Impressionist groundbreaker Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune with the quasi-symphonic La mer and the dance-inspired Jeux is as all-embracing as it is exquisite.

Gergiev fills them with all manner of silken touches, succulently realised by the LSO’s many fine solo contributions. The crashing wave power of La mer is majestic, even awesome at times, but never rough. The lesser-played Jeux introduces more sinister hues, but is again driven by a delicious, multicoloured finesse.’ The Scotsman ‘Jeux turns out to be Valery Gergiev’s game, set and match. The ambiguity and transience of the music are captured with fleet-footed energy, wit and real piquancy.’ International Record Review ‘This is a fiery and exciting performance of Debussy’s masterpiece, and may not be to every taste. But if you’re open for a muscular approach to La Mer, Gergiev gives a characteristically dramatic and impassioned reading. Perhaps the real gem here is a wonderfully atmospheric (and kinetic) Jeux; the composer’s late dance masterpiece sounds stunning in the full and wide-ranging LSO Live sound.’ Barry Forshaw, CD Choice 'Principal flutist Gareth Davies is enchanting in every moment of the long flute solos. The clear and spacious SACD recording reveals beautiful layers of detail in the music ...

Gergiev brings a real sense of mystery and raw energy to the finale that is fresh and exhilarating ... This is my new favorite La Mer.' American Record Guide *** ‘Un joyeux mélange d'influences, un étonnant festival de couleurs et de nuances, dont la musique sort revivifiée.’ Point de Vue *** ‘Valery Gergiev est un authentique magicien des notes… il sculpte le son, lui donne du galbe et malaxe la "pâte debussyste" avec une dextérité admirable.’ Valeurs Actuelles £7.99 Debussy - definition of Debussy by The Free Dictionary Debussy - definition of Debussy by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Thesaurus , Encyclopedia , Wikipedia . De·bus·sy (də-byo͞o′sē, dĕb′yo͞o-sē′, də-bü-sē′), Claude Achille 1862-1918. French composer best known for impressionist works such as the tone poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894).

Debussy (dəˈbjuːsɪ; ˈdeɪbjuːsɪ; French dəbysi) n (Biography) (Achille) Claude (klod). 1862–1918, French composer and critic, the creator of impressionism in music and a profound influence on contemporary composition. His works include Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894) and La Mer (1905) for orchestra, the opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902), and many piano pieces and song settings De•bus•sy (ˌdɛb yʊˈsi, ˌdeɪ byʊ-, dəˈbyu si) n. Claude Achille, 1862–1918, French composer. De•bus′sy•an, adj. ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend: Claude Debussy | Biography & History | AllMusic google+ Artist Biography by Allen Schrott Claude Debussy (born Achille-Claude Debussy) was among the most influential composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

His mature compositions, distinctive and appealing, combined modernism and sensuality so successfully that their sheer beauty often obscures their technical innovation. Debussy is considered the founder and leading exponent of musical Impressionism (although he resisted the label), and his adoption of non-traditional scales and tonal structures was paradigmatic for many composers who followed. The son of a shopkeeper and a seamstress, Debussy began piano studies at the Paris Conservatory at the age of 11. While a student there, he encountered the wealthy Nadezhda von Meck (most famous as Tchaikovsky 's patroness), who employed him as a music teacher to her children; through travel, concerts and acquaintances, she provided him with a wealth of musical experience. Most importantly, she exposed the young Debussy to the works of Russian composers, such as Borodin and Mussorgsky , who would remain important influences on his music. Debussy began composition studies in 1880, and in 1884 he won the prestigious Prix de Rome with his cantata L'enfant prodigue. This prize financed two years of further study in Rome -- years that proved to be creatively frustrating.

However, the period immediately following was fertile for the young composer; trips to Bayreuth and the Paris World Exhibition (1889) established, respectively, his determination to move away from the influence of Richard Wagner, and his interest in the music of Eastern cultures. After a relatively bohemian period, during which Debussy formed friendships with many leading Parisian writers and musicians (not least of which were Mallarmé , Satie, and Chausson), the year 1894 saw the enormously successful premiere of his Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) -- a truly revolutionary work that brought his mature compositional voice into focus. His seminal opera Pelléas et Mélisande, completed the next year, would become a sensation at its first performance in 1902.

The impact of those two works earned Debussy widespread recognition (as well as frequent attacks from critics, who failed to appreciate his forward-looking style), and over the first decade of the twentieth century he established himself as the leading figure in French music -- so much so that the term "Debussysme" ("Debussyism"), used both positively and pejoratively, became fashionable in Paris. Debussy spent his remaining healthy years immersed in French musical society, writing as a critic, composing, and performing his own works internationally. He succumbed to colon cancer in 1918, having also suffered a deep depression brought on by the onset of World War I. Debussy's personal life was punctuated by unfortunate incidents, most famously the attempted suicide of his first wife, Lilly Texier, whom he abandoned for the singer Emma Bardac. However, his subsequent marriage to Bardac, and their daughter Claude-Emma, whom they called "Chouchou" and who became the dedicatee of the composer's Children's Corner piano suite, provided the middle-aged Debussy with great personal joys. Debussy wrote successfully in most every genre, adapting his distinctive compositional language to the demands of each.

His orchestral works, of which Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune and La mer (The Sea, 1905) are most familiar, established him as a master of instrumental color and texture. It is this attention to tone color -- his layering of sound upon sound so that they blend to form a greater, evocative whole -- that linked Debussy in the public mind to the Impressionist painters. His works for solo piano, particularly his collections of Préludes and Etudes, which have remained staples of the repertoire since their composition, bring into relief his assimilation of elements from both Eastern cultures and antiquity -- especially pentatonicism (the use of five-note scales), modality (the use of scales from ancient Greece and the medieval church), parallelism (the parallel movement of chords and lines), and the whole-tone scale (formed by dividing the octave into six equal intervals). Pelléas et Mélisande and his collections of songs for solo voice establish the strength of his connection to French literature and poetry, especially the symbolist writers, and stand as some of the most understatedly expressive works in the repertory.

The writings of Mallarmé , Maeterlinck , Baudelaire , and his childhood friend Paul Verlaine appear prominently among his chosen texts and joined symbiotically with the composer's own unique moods and forms of expression. Composer : Claude Debussy Claude Debussy August 22, 1862, St. Germaine-en-Laye, France Died: Return to Just Listen: Era : Composer In his own words.... "A symphony is usually built on a melody heard by the composer as a child. The first section is the customary presentation of a theme on which the composer proposes to work; then begins the necessary dismemberment; the second section seems to take place in an experimental laboratory; the third section cheers up a little in a quite childish way, interspersed with deep sentimental phrases during which the melody recedes, as is more seemly; but it reappears and the dismemberment goes on...I am more and more convinced that music is not, in essence, a thing which can be cast into a traditional and fixed form. It is made up of colors and rhythms." French composer and critic.

Debussy's music is often associated with the contemporary impressionist movement in painting, and his approach shares some characteristics of this style. "The primary aim of French music," Claude Debussy wrote in 1904, "is to give pleasure." Debussy, more than anything, was interested in the sensuous quality of music. Even as a student he let his concept of sound override many of the rules he was so assiduously taught by his teachers (much to their consternation). From this he developed a style that was wholly his own, but that also owed much to a wide variety of disparate influences. He also was a passionate champion of a purely French style, and he proudly referred to himself as "Claude Debussy, musicien français." Debussy was educated at the Paris Conservatory, and in 1885 he won the coveted Prix de Rome. His period in Rome, however, was not pleasant for Debussy and he longed to return to Paris. His early works show his desire to break the constraints of Western harmony and form (he especially disliked sonata-allegro form, which he came to see as overly Germanic and not fitting for a French composer).

His Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun" departs from any sense of development, relying instead on a series of free repetitions and variations of the basic themes. As a student and a young composer, Debussy was also an ardent Wagnerite, seeing in the German composer the future of music, specifically musical drama. He later turned away from Wagner, describing him as "a beautiful sunset mistaken for a dawn." Yet his one completed opera, Pelléas et Mélisande , owes much of its conception to this influence, even if the musical language is markedly different. The other strong influences on Debussy at this time were the symbolist and decadent movements in poetry, with their concern for sound and abstract meaning. While Pelléas was his only opera, he worked on various subjects by Edgar Allan Poe, one of his favorite writers and a strong influence on the symbolist writers. Debussy's interest in the exquisite and sensual also led him to an appreciation of the music of other cultures, and his use of various scales beyond the traditional major and minor ones shows the influence of Oriental and Russian music. A decisive influence was the Paris Exhibition of 1889, where he first encountered the music of the Indonesian gamelan orchestra.

The different scales, as well as the floating qualities of form and rhythm, would find their way into his work, especially his piano music. Late in his life, Debussy turned his interests to abstract forms, producing three remarkable sonatas (he had originally conceived of six for various instruments, with the final one planned for all the instruments of the previous five). In these works, Debussy's rich melodic and harmonic language found a new and intriguing expression. Sadly, this endeavor was cut short by the composer's death at the height of World War I. The conflict of German and French civilization was for him a violent reflection of the musical conflict he dealt with his entire life.

back to top Works Orchestral music, including Prelude à "L'après-midi d'un faune" ( Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun ," 1894), Nocturnes (1899), La mer ( The Sea , 1905), Images (1912), incidental music Dramatic works, including the opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902) and the ballet Jeux (Games, 1913) Chamber music, including a string quartet (1893) and various sonatas (cello, 1915; violin, 1917; flute, viola, and harp, 1915) Piano music, including Pour le piano ( For the Piano , 1901), Estampes ( Prints , 1903), 2 books of preludes (1909�10, 1912�13) Songs and choral music; cantatas, including L'enfant prodigue (The Prodigal Son , 1884) Claude Debussy | French composer | Britannica.com French composer Igor Strav

insky Claude Debussy, in full Achille-Claude Debussy (born August 22, 1862, Saint-Germain-en-Laye , France —died March 25, 1918, Paris ), French composer whose works were a seminal force in the music of the 20th century.

He developed a highly original system of harmony and musical structure that expressed in many respects the ideals to which the Impressionist and Symbolist painters and writers of his time aspired. His major works include Clair de lune (“Moonlight,” in Suite bergamasque, 1890–1905), Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894; Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), the opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902), and La Mer (1905; “The Sea”). Claude Debussy, painting by Marcel Baschet, 1884; in the Versailles Museum. Giraudon/Art Resource, New York Early period Debussy showed a gift as a pianist by the age of nine. He was encouraged by Madame Mauté de Fleurville, who was associated with the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin , and in 1873 he entered the Paris Conservatory, where he studied the piano and composition , eventually winning in 1884 the Grand Prix de Rome with his cantata L’Enfant prodigue (The Prodigal Child).

Debussy’s youth was spent in circumstances of great turbulence. He was almost overwhelmed by situations of great extremes, both material and emotional. While living with his parents in a poverty-stricken suburb of Paris, he unexpectedly came under the patronage of a Russian millionairess, Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck , who engaged him to play duets with her and her children. He traveled with her to her palatial residences throughout Europe during the long summer vacations at the Conservatory. In Paris during this time he fell in love with a singer, Blanche Vasnier, the beautiful young wife of an architect; she inspired many of his early works. It is clear that he was torn by influences from many directions; these stormy years, however, contributed to the sensitivity of his early style. This early style is well illustrated in one of Debussy’s best-known compositions , Clair de lune .

The title refers to a folk song that was the conventional accompaniment of scenes of the love-sick Pierrot in the French pantomime, and indeed the many Pierrot-like associations in Debussy’s later music, notably in the orchestral work Images (1912) and the Sonata for Cello and Piano (1915; originally titled Pierrot fâché avec la lune [“Pierrot Vexed by the Moon”]), show his connections with the circus spirit that also appeared in works by other composers, notably the ballet Petrushka (1911) by Igor Stravinsky and Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg . Middle period Cheetahs Face Extinction Risk As a holder of the Grand Prix de Rome, Debussy was given a three-year stay at the Villa Medici in Rome, where, under what were supposed to be ideal conditions, he was to pursue his creative work. Most composers who were granted this state scholarship, however, found life in this magnificent Renaissance palace irksome and longed to return to simpler and more familiar surroundings. Debussy himself eventually fled from the Villa Medici after two years and returned to Blanche Vasnier in Paris.

Several other women, some of doubtful reputation, were also associated with him in his early years. At this time Debussy lived a life of extreme indulgence . Once one of his mistresses, Gabrielle (“Gaby”) Dupont, threatened suicide. His first wife, Rosalie (“Lily”) Texier, a dressmaker, whom he married in 1899, did in fact shoot herself, though not fatally, and, as is sometimes the case with artists of passionate intensity, Debussy himself was haunted by thoughts of suicide. Claude Debussy. Photos.com/Jupiterimages The main musical influence in Debussy’s work was the work of Richard Wagner and the Russian composers Aleksandr Borodin and Modest Mussorgsky . Wagner fulfilled the sensuous ambitions not only of composers but also of the Symbolist poets and the Impressionist painters. Wagner’s conception of Gesamtkunstwerk (“total art work”) encouraged artists to refine upon their emotional responses and to exteriorize their hidden dream states, often in a shadowy, incomplete form; hence the more tenuous nature of the work of Wagner’s French disciples .

It was in this spirit that Debussy wrote the symphonic poem Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (1894). Other early works by Debussy show his affinity with the English Pre-Raphaelite painters; the most notable of these works is La Damoiselle élue (1888), based on “ The Blessed Damozel ” (1850), a poem by the English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti . In the course of his career, however, which covered only 25 years, Debussy was constantly breaking new ground. Explorations, he maintained, were the essence of music; they were his musical bread and wine. His single completed opera, Pelléas et Mélisande (1st perf. 1902), demonstrates how the Wagnerian technique could be adapted to portray subjects like the dreamy nightmarish figures of this opera who were doomed to self-destruction. Debussy and his librettist, Maurice Maeterlinck , declared that they were haunted in this work by the terrifying nightmare tale of Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher.

The style of Pelléas was to be replaced by a bolder, more highly coloured manner. In his seascape La Mer (1905) he was inspired by the ideas of the English painter J.M.W. Turner and the French painter Claude Monet . In his work, as in his personal life, he was anxious to gather experience from every region that the imaginative mind could explore. Late period Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies In 1905 Debussy’s illegitimate daughter, Claude-Emma, was born. He had divorced Lily Texier in 1904 and subsequently married his daughter’s mother, Emma Bardac. Repelled by the gossip and scandal arising from this situation, he sought refuge for a time at Eastbourne , on the south coast of England. For his daughter, nicknamed Chouchou, he wrote the piano suite Children’s Corner (1908).

Debussy’s spontaneity and the sensitive nature of his perception facilitated his acute insight into the child mind, an insight noticeable particularly in Children’s Corner, a French counterpart to Mussorgsky’s song cycle The Nursery; in the Douze Préludes, 2 books (1910, 1913; “Twelve Preludes”), for piano; and in the ballet La Boîte à joujoux (1st perf. 1919; The Box of Toys). Claude Debussy, 1909. Listen: “Flute of Pan” Excerpt from Flute of Pan (Piece for … In his later years, it is the pursuit of illusion that marks Debussy’s instrumental writing, especially the strange, other-worldly Cello Sonata. This noble bass instrument takes on, in chameleon fashion, the character of a violin, a flute , and even a mandolin. Debussy was developing in this work ideas of an earlier period, those expressed in a youthful play he had written, Frères en art (Brothers in Art), where his challenging, indeed anarchical, ideas are discussed among musicians, painters, and poets.

(He had in fact published in one of the anarchist journals poems that he had written and that he later set to music in the song cycle Proses lyriques [1893].) Evolution of his work Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Debussy’s music marks the first of a series of attacks on the traditional language of the 19th century. He did not believe in the stereotyped harmonic procedures of the 19th century, and indeed it becomes clear from a study of mid-20th-century music that the earlier harmonic methods were being followed in an arbitrary, academic manner. Hence his formulation of the “21-note scale ” designed to “drown” the sense of tonality, though this system was never adhered to in the inflexible manner of the 12-note system of Schoenberg. Debussy’s inquiring mind similarly challenged the traditional orchestral usage of instruments . He rejected the traditional dictum that string instruments should be predominantly lyrical. The pizzicato scherzo from his String Quartet (1893) and the symbolic writing for the violins in La Mer, conveying the rising storm waves, show a new conception of string colour.

Similarly, he saw that woodwinds need not be employed for fireworks displays; they provide, like the human voice, wide varieties of colour. Debussy also used the brass in original colour transformations. In fact, in his music, the conventional orchestral construction, with its rigid woodwind, brass, and string departments, finds itself undermined or split up in the manner of the Impressionist painters. Ultimately, each instrument becomes almost a soloist, as in a vast chamber-music ensemble. Finally, Debussy applied an exploratory approach to the piano , the evocative instrument par excellence since notes struck at the keyboard are, by the nature of the piano mechanism, neither eighth notes, quarter notes, nor half notes, but merely illusions of these notes. During the latter part of his life Debussy created an alter ego, “Monsieur Croche,” with whom he carried on imaginary conversations on the nature of art and music. “What is the use of your almost incomprehensible art?” Monsieur Croche asks.

“Is it not more profitable to see the sun rise than to listen to the Pastoral Symphony of Beethoven?” Elsewhere Monsieur Croche supports the cause of the musical explorer: “I am less interested in what I possess than in what I shall need tomorrow.” Trending Topics Srinivasa Ramanujan In his last works, the piano pieces En blanc et noir, (1915; In Black and White) and in the Douze Études (1915; “Twelve Études”), Debussy had branched out into modes of composition later to be developed in the styles of Stravinsky and the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók . It is certain that he would have taken part in the leading movements in composition of the years following World War I had his life not been so tragically cut short by cancer. Wagner, said Debussy, was a wonderful sunset that had been mistaken for a dawn. As one looks back on the music of the last century this seems a remarkably shrewd observation. It was true of Wagner, of course, but it is now seen to be more true of Debussy himself.

The fact is that there comes a time when the peak, the zenith of a civilization is reached. Critics have frequently noted this evolutionary stage in the music of Wagner, Debussy, or in one of their followers. A quintessential spirit is presented by these composers; and it seemed at the time that they could never be surpassed. But of course it is at this very stage that a decline in musical values sets in. Hence the paradoxical element in Debussy’s stature. Undoubtedly, he was aware of this duality in his achievement, as may be gathered from his searching, hesitant letters. Sensitive to sham in every sphere and also a child of his environment , he not only perceived this dual aspect of his work but also realized the extent to which he himself was caught up in this vast evolutionary transformation. Debussy’s work cannot be judged on the musical level alone. “One must seek the poetry in his work,” said his friend the French composer Paul Dukas. There is not only poetry in his music; there is often an inspiration from painting. “I love painting [les images, a generic term that might apply to the whole of Debussy’s work] almost as much as music itself,” he told the Franco-American composer Edgard Varèse .

This association of the arts is a theme that runs through the whole of the 19th century—it originated with the theories of the German short-story writer E.T.A. Hoffmann—but for Debussy it was a theory more sensitively expressed in the tales of Edgar Allan Poe . Throughout his life Debussy planned to set The Fall of the House of Usher in the form of an opera—the shadow of the tale never having been realized in Pelléas et Mélisande—and actually signed a contract for the production of this work at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City , but it was never completed. The fact is that the hero of the tale, Roderick Usher, was a hypersensitive being like Debussy himself—a poet, a painter, and a musician. Moreover, the reputation of Poe was, during Debussy’s life and after, almost entirely a French reputation. The French poets translated his works, and the French painters appreciated his genius; and it was therefore only natural that a French musician should similarly have reflected the nature of his appeal. Debussy: La Mer, Jeux, Prelude a l'apres midi d'un ...

- Lso Live: LSO0692 | Buy from ArkivMusic SEE, HEAR & LEARN MORE! Notes & Editorial Reviews Works on This Recording Customer Reviews Notes and Editorial Reviews DEBUSSY Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. La Mer. Jeux ï¿½ Valery Gergiev, cond; London SO ï¿½ LSO LIVE 0692 (SACD: 56:07) Based on this CD, Valery Gergiev appears to be working wonders as principal conductor of the London Symphony. Rarely have I heard Debussy presented with such purity of intonation and miracles of ensemble. Russian conductors are not noted particularly for their Debussy, although Evgeny Svetlanov was a fine interpreter of La Mer . Gergiev Read more appreciates Debussy to the core. He takes his time in Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun . His reading is more than a minute slower than Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, two minutes slower than Boulez and the New Philharmonia. Gergievï¿½s performance is languorous; one can partake of the faunï¿½s sensual daydreams.

There is erotic tension in the long breaths of the winds and horn, matched by the singing tone of the strings. Dynamics are beautifully modulated, and transitions are carefully judged. The ending of the piece is just a haze. Gergievï¿½s reading certainly is individual, but very telling. La Mer poses a challenge to any conductor; Gergiev is up to the task. In ï¿½From Dawn to Noon on the Sea,ï¿½ the dawn is suggested beautifully and delicatelyï¿½one can see the sun peeking over the horizon. As day breaks, the shimmering of light on the water is tellingly evoked. Nowhere more than here is Debussy an Impressionist. Noon is a brilliant wash of colors. Gergiev makes the varied rhythmic patterns in ï¿½The Play of the Wavesï¿½ sound completely natural. One even can hear the spray of the waves, so subtle is the orchestral coloration.

The delicately shifting hues put me in mind of the second section of Iberia , ï¿½The Perfumes of the Night.ï¿½ With the rising winds at the start of ï¿½Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea,ï¿½ one can hear its influence on the ï¿½Cloudburstï¿½ movement of Groféï¿½s Grand Canyon Suite . Even so, Gergiev finds the lyric element in this music; he never overplays its drama. The ending is built up beautifully. Thus concludes a striking and vivid La Mer. Gergiev presents us with the best Jeux I have ever heard. In his interpretation, one can hear its relation to Russian music, particularly Liadov and Scriabinï¿½even certain moods of Rimsky-Korsakov. Never have I experienced Jeux ï¿½s thematic material delineated with such coherence. Every strand of the orchestration is revealed. The harmony is shown to be forward-looking, yet saturated in orchestral color; Gergiev appears to love every pointillist dot of color. This is one of the great displays of virtuoso conducting technique in my experience.

Fittingly, the CD places Jeux after La Mer , representing the progression of Debussyï¿½s orchestral writing. The CD layer of the disc features sound that is clear and warm, though a little lacking in body and atmosphere. I was unable to hear the SACD layer. In all three works, I am very fond of the Boulez and Bernstein performances I mentioned above. In Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and La Mer , Gergiev creates satisfying alternatives to these recordings. In Jeux , he surpasses them. FANFARE: Dave Saemann Claude Debussy (1862-1918) Listening Outlines Claude Debussy (1862-1918) Claude Debussy is generally considered the dominant figure in the transition from the late romantic style to that of the twentieth century. Born in St. Germain de Fleurville, France in 1862, Debussy studied at the famous Paris Conservatory from the age of ten to twenty-two and awarded the Prix de Rome in 1884.

Debussy's principal influences included the music of Russia, the exotic colors of Asian music (which he first heard at the Paris International Exposition in 1889), and the ideas of writers and poets like St�phane Mallarm�, Paul Verlaine, and Charles-Pierre Baudelaire. Following the production of his opera Pell�as et M�lisande in 1902 and the completion of his popular orchestral work La Mer (The Sea) (1905) Debussy was soon recognized as a leading composer of early twentieth-century. Due to certain aspects of Debussy's style, his music is usually classified as a musical counterpart to the artistic movement known as impressionism. Like the paintings of Claude Monet (1840-1926), Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), and Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Debussy's music (and musical impressionism in general) conveys a feeling of vagueness rather than sharply defined articulation.

For example, the exotic tone colors, sensuous harmonies, imperceptible metrical pulse, and tonal ambiguity--all characteristics of Debussy's style--seem to accurately reflect the spirit of ethereal paintings like Monet's Impression, Sunrise(1874). In debussy's music, clearly delineated harmonic progressions, melodies, and rhythms are purposely avoided to evoke mood and atmosphere rather than concrete images. In the work entitled La Cath�drale engloutie (The Sunken Cathedral), Debussy utilizes a compositional device known as parallel chords (or planing) to dilute the sense of directed motion found in traditional progressions. It should be noted that it it took a while for the critics and the listening public to warm up to this new and bold experiment in harmonic freedom. La Cath�drale engloutie The colorful harmonies suggests Debussy was guided simply by that which he found pleasing to the ear rather than some "rule" of traditional harmonic practice.

In 1890 Debussy's professor at the Paris Conservatory commented on Debussy's use of parallel chords in the following way: "I am not saying that what you do isn't beautiful, but it's theoretically absurd." Debussy simply replied: "There is no theory. You have merely to listen. Pleasure is the law." Debussy was fond of unusual scale patterns. Medieval church modes and numerous scales from the orient were used extensively. One such scale is the pentatonic scale. As implied by the name, this scale utilizes a total of five notes (e.g., corresponding to the black keys of the piano keyboard) rather than the traditional eight. A pentatonic scale is illustrated below: Pentatonic Scale The whole-tone scale is another frequently encountered scale pattern in the music of Debussy. This scale consists of six different notes with no intervening half-steps. Whole Tone Scale A good example of the whole tone is found in Debussy's Voiles (Sails) (i.e., G sharp, F sharp, E, D, C, B flat). Voiles The musical elements described above are but a few of the unique characteristics of musical impressionism.

Numerous composers asssociated with the style, most notably Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), developed a number of unique and fascinating effects. However, one of the most important works representing musical impressionism is Debussy's Pr�lude � "L'apr�s-midi d'un faune" (Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun," 1894). Written as a free illustration of the poem by St�phane Mallarm� (The Afternoon of a Faune), this work continues to exert enormous influence on composers. Additional information can be found on the Kamien web site Copyright �1998 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Debussy Only the Son of a Sailor Can write about the Sea Achille Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918) French composer, whose harmonic innovations helped pave the way for the musical upheavals of the 20th century. Debussy was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye on August 22, 1862, and educated at the Paris Conservatoire, which he entered at the age of 10.

He traveled to Florence, Venice, Vienna, and Moscow in 1879 as private musician to Nadejda von Meck, the patron of Russian composer Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky. While in Russia Debussy became acquainted with the music of such Russian composers as Tchaikovsky, Aleksandr Borodin, Mily Balakirev, and Modest Mussorgsky and with Russian folk and gypsy music. Debussy won the much coveted Grand Prix de Rome in 1884 for his cantata L'enfant prodigue (The Prodigal Son). He then studied in Rome for two years, according to the terms of the award, and submitted new compositions regularly but unsuccessfully to the Grand Prix committee. Among these were the symphonic suite Printemps and a cantata, La demoiselle �lue, based on a poem, �The Blessed Damozel,� by the British writer Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Early Works During the 1890s Debussy's works were performed with increasing frequency, and despite their then-controversial nature, he began to gain some recognition as a composer.

Outstanding are the String Quartet in G Minor (1893), which some critics regard as his best work; and the famed Pr�lude � l'apr�s-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, 1894), his first mature orchestral work. The latter was based on a poem by the French symbolist St�phane Mallarm�. Debussy's opera Pell�as et M�lisande, based on the play of the same name by the Belgian poet Maurice Maeterlinck, was produced in 1902. It earned Debussy widespread fame as a musician of outstanding significance. The extent to which his score retained and enhanced the abstract, dreamlike quality of Maeterlinck's play was extraordinary, as was his treatment of melody; in his hands, the latter became virtually an extension, or duplication, of the rhythm of natural speech. Regarded by some critics as a perfectly wedded fusion of music and drama, it has had frequent revivals. From 1902 to 1910 Debussy wrote chiefly for the piano.

Among the most important works of this period were Estampes (Engravings, 1903), L'�le joyeuse (The Isle of Mirth, 1904), Images (two series, 1905 and 1907), and many preludes. He rejected the traditionally percussive approach to the piano, instead emphasizing the instrument's capabilities for delicate expressiveness. In 1909 Debussy learned that he was afflicted with cancer, from which he died on March 25, 1918. Most of the works he produced during his last years were for chamber ensembles. Forerunner of Modern Style The music of Debussy's fully mature style was the forerunner of much modern music and made him one of the most important late 19th- and early 20th-century composers. His innovations were chiefly harmonic. Although he did not devise the whole-tone scale, he was the first composer to exploit it successfully. His treatment of chords was radical in its time; he arranged chord progressions in such a way as to weaken, rather than support, the illusion of any specified key.

The lack of fixed tonality produced a vague, dreamy character that some contemporary critics termed musical impressionism, after the resemblance they saw between it and the pictorial effect achieved by painters of the impressionist school; the term is still used in describing his music. Debussy himself did not create a new school of composition, but he liberated music from the limitations of traditional harmony; moreover, the high quality of his own works proved to subsequent composers the validity of experimenting with new ideas and techniques. Among Debussy's numerous other important works are the ballet score Jeux (Frolics, 1912), the orchestral poem La mer (The Sea, 1905), and the songs Cinq po�mes de Baudelaire (Five poems of Baudelaire, 1889). "Debussy, (Achille) Claude," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.

"I am trying to do 'something different'- in a way realities- what the imbeciles call `impressionism' is a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by art critics." - Claude Debussy in a letter of March, 1908 Rain, Steam, and Speed. Joseph Turner. Drawing from his exposure to Impressionism in painting, Debussy attempted to recreate the subtle, nuances in shading, light which made this new type of artform unique. Starting with l'Apres-midi d'un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) impressionistic imagery and style becomes characteristic of Debussy's works. This type of imagery can also be found in the symbolist movement of the time in literature which was also among the major influences upon Debussy. Perhaps the greatest symphonic impressionist work of all time is Debussy's La Mer, called by some critics the "best symphony ever written by a Frenchman." La Mer is great for its unity in form, with all important structural elements of a symphonic work (melody, harmony, rhythm, etc.) In La Mer, all of the greatest influences of Debussy's life are manifested.

As a child, the son of a sailor, he was told wondrous stories of his father's expeditions. Later on, Turner's sea pictures would also inspire Debussy, with their powers of suggestion. Debussy most likely saw Turner's pictures in Paris or at London's National Gallery in his travels of 1902 and 1903, around the time when he began composing La Mer. The resulting symphonic work is one of Debussy's greatest, a landmark work. It manages to be suggestive, yet with technical precision and clarity, a true masterpiece. The three movements are entitled "De l'aube a midi sur la mer" (From dawn to midday at sea), "Jeu de vagues" (Play of the waves), and "Dialogue du vent et de la mer" (Dialogue of the wind and the sea). The indelible mark of impressionism upon Debussy is evident in this remark which he made concerning his life away from the sea. "But I have an endless store of memories, and to my mind, they are worth more than the reality, whose beauty often deadens thought."

Question: """Prelude a I'apres-midi d'un faune"" and ""La Mer"" are amongst the works of which impressionist composer?"
Answer: Claude Debussy